The Jumping1ton Story Part I
How it all started.
I believe, like many of you who landed on this page because of your passion and love for food, that at one time or another, you or a family member must have been WOW by your culinary creations. Therefore it is very tempting to entertain the thought of “what if I setup shop”. I am sure you can just imagine the lines that goes around the block wanting you signature dishes. Well, I am not going to lie, these thoughts crossed our minds all the time. It is okay to dream because dreams are what drive most of us to succeed in life whatever those may be.
My wife is the eternal optimist, there is nothing she feel she can’t do if she set her mind to it and she will not take no for an answer. Growing up, her dad owned a bakery among other ventures and she probably took after him including his love for good cuisines. Therefore, is not surprising that she would be fascinated with the idea of running a restaurant even though she has no experience or exposure to it. Another reason, just my opinion, is that deep down, she knows that I am her wingman, who will be there to do the heavy lifting whether I agree to it or not. She would start a project and I would be suddenly tasked with the execution. You would think that after all these times, I would wised up and know how to not be involved again. Well time and time and again, I found myself “kicking myself” for getting cornered into doing the execution part of her projects. I keep telling myself, there’s not going to be another time. Well, Jumping1ton is another time. To be honest, I have myself to blame for it. Over the years, I have also been fascinated with the idea of operating a food business. I have carried this dream around of running a specialty coffee shop that serve coffee and lite snack by a beach where i would only work short hours. The shop would have an outdoor patio where i would hang my bird cages. Yes i was into birds especially those Asian song birds like Hwa Mei, Sharma, etc. (this will be a story for another time)
What is Jumping1ton? Is that the name of a Gym? Is this an equipment store? Interesting name for a shop!
These are some of the questions or comments we heard over the years. If you were to breakup Jumping1ton’s name into 3 parts – Jumping – 1 – ton, there is nothing in these 3 words that reference anything remotely related to eatery or edibles. Therefore it is understandable for the confusions and surprised looks we were getting those days. You are probably wondering where or how did we come up with the name Jumping1ton. Below is the story of Jumping1ton.
Jumping1ton was started with the idea of bringing Shanghainese wonton with a twist to the US. Like most Asian wonton recipes, Shanghainese style wonton is a soup wonton dish. It started out when one of the co-founder was making wontons and serving the dish to friends and family and he started getting from these friends to sell these wontons in frozen state for them to cook at home. Wonton in soup is pretty easy to make at home if you have the wonton already, however making the wonton is more work than most busy household would like to make when you can purchase a bag of 50 frozen wontons for under USD $25. Soon, demand for his frozen wontons grew beyond his friends and family and so it was time that he seriously consider setting this up as a business. His initial plan was to setup a commercial kitchen to market these wonton. However, it doesn’t make financial sense with his plan as he did not have enough customers to support that and on top of this, he was limited to the Asian community and there are competitions. I mean serious competitions. We suggested that, he needed to expand his reach beyond the Asian community and offer wonton in a form that non Asian customer can readily accept and relate to. Well in America, that is “fried wonton”
Living in America, you see some form of fried wontons usually in one of those Chinese buffet places that cater to non Asian customers. Here lies a problem, these wontons are not really wonton, they are just fried wonton wrapper with a pinch of bland meat at the most. In order for Jumping1ton business plan to work, there needs to be a way to set expectation for the non-Asian customers. Let me take that back, it should be for all customers including Asian. This was what went through my mind when we were sitting around the dining table “brainstorming”,more on this later.
They (the partner) wanted a location to make frozen wonton for sale to the general public and enlisted my wife to assist with securing a location. How did my wife get involved? She was introduced to the partner by a mutual friend who were looking for an real estates investment group for a hotel. Long story short, one thing let to another and the idea of a restaurant serving authentic “Xiao Long Bao” (soup dumpling) and ended up being about wonton.
The original idea was to offer frozen wonton in pack of 50s for customers to make their own wonton soup at home. I brought up the idea that it should not be limited to that and expand to providing fried wonton. My justification being, we will expand the customer base. My main hidden agenda is so that they will be confidence that the business will succeed without needing our involvement. I had been in a few business ventures with partners to know that there are more thorny ends than rosy ends to any partnerships. And after an unpleasant encounter with the partner’s wife that left a bad taste in my “pride”, I want no involvement is this venture. For a business to succeed, beside having a great business plan, having a partner who understand what it takes, respect and trust each other and most importantly, put the business goals ahead of individual or personal goals with no hidden agendas.
So I suggested that food trucks operators would be a great avenue for pushing his Fried wonton as they should already have the fryers in their truck. During this whole time, my wife was starting to get all excited about this venture and had already made her mind up to go into it. So now the business plan expanded to offering wontons for the food truckers. At this point, all discussions were about the product and distribution channels, there were no mention about the financing, partnerships, team. In the mean while, I was subtly trying to dissuade my wife about jumping in.
Since i know i would not be able to convince the wife not to join this venture, I was trying to provide ideas to the partners in such a way that they can operate it on their own without needing partners. In hindsight, i don’t think they ever wanted partners as their plans was to built the business up and hand it over to their son. However, this wasn’t mentioned during the planning stage. Mind you, the business plan changed several times while we were in search of a location. Since my wife had a real estate license, she volunteer to research on commercial property for lease. After a few months, she found a location that is in move-in condition. It was original setup to be a deli by the owner for himself but had a change of plan due to issue with his cousin/partner. Bad omen? The initial impression for this location was very good, it was in the business district right across from the City Hall and Police station. Police station, we got to make sure we have ample coffee pots brewing all day long. The interior was setup with everything we would need and more. Since this was never used, it was in mint condition. Going with this setup for $50,000, would save at least USD$250,000 – $300,000 in setup cost.
Since this location is setup quick service in the front, we thought it would be great place to promote the fried wonton, while we built out the wholesale side of the business. In addition, the partners’ son wanted “Boba Milk Tea” for beverages on the menu. Next came the bombshell, “Hey, we can start a fried wonton franchise”. With this, all my efforts in dissuading the wife from participating went out the window. The ink dried on the lease agreement and I am stuck supporting the wife and the only thing I can do is try to make the best lemonades out of the lemon of a deal I found myself in.
The thought of setting up shop selling fried wonton and boba tea in the middle of a city that is predominantly Hispanics where there are tacos shops at every corner of most streets did not spell like a winner to me. So I brought up the idea that we need a menu category that will bring in the customer. In other words, we need something on the menu that is familiar to anyone who walk in and wonder what is wonton and boba tea. Since the shop has all the setup for making sandwiches, why don’t we offer sandwiches to complement the wontons. My thought is, if someone walk in and see things that they are not familiar with, they will probably walk out and never step foot in the shop again. Everyone know what a sandwich is, right? Well the hope is if they stayed for the sandwiches, we can enticed them to try the wontons. The partners were not very receptive of this idea for several reasons, 1) sandwiches isn’t their thing. 2) they just want to focus on wonton because that is all they know and have total control over the recipes, 3) they are concerned that the sandwiches will eat into their wonton sales, 4) they have no control over the sandwiches recipes, or how to create them. I volunteer to be in charge of the sandwich menu and they just have to focus on their wonton.
The next question, I brought up, was beside boba iced tea, what about coffee? There is a police station across the street and cops love coffee, in fact American love coffee. No brainer, right? What about for people who doesn’t drink iced tea, what about serving soda – everyone love a coke or a pepsi, right? How about those healthy customers who only want water?
The answer is an adamant NO by the partners. Their reason is simple, it will affect their son’s boba iced tea sales! Here i was scratching my head over this statement. My thought was, a sale is cha-ching in the cash drawer. It does not matter what the the item purchased was? Several reasons were provided by the partners for their decision ranging from the iced tea margin was higher than the soda, coffee, and water. If the customer did not want or drink tea, let them be. They can leave if they don’t like it! As for the sandwich menu, they decided to compromise by allowing, in their words “two or three items only”. They excuse was they did not want to over-burden me!!! Yeah nice try. I goal is to not let the business fail miserably that it will affect me and the wife negatively.
Yes, I know, all of the above should have been ironed out early in the game. You might also be wondering why the partners have most of the final say in all the decisions making. I have only myself and the wife to blame. Since I am only in a “support the wife” role, I don’t have much of a say in it, even though i was expected to be a contributing team members when the heavy lifting is needed. I can only provide my 2 cents to the wife and its on her to rely it to partners. Well from the beginning the partners and his wife were very vocal and they even told us that since we are “too nice and never done big business” (my interpreation – you guys are not business smart) and we should just follow them. Their vocal resumes were loaded with what they have accomplished in China and their connection to wealthy friends! While my wife briefly mentioned her involvement in her Teriyaki Hut Venture. Even their 20 yr son who works as server at a restaurant according to them has “more” experience than us. Well, if you say so, until you prove yourself wrong – that was my initial thought.
Can’t blame them for thinking that, as I am not usually talkative and don’t like wasting time talking about nothing. I don’t have bright ideas on the spot, but tends to come up with some good ideas after some deep thoughts. I also believe that action is louder than words and i have always followed this principle. At times it backfired on me, but in life you go with your strength and more times than not it work out to your advantage. I am part of the “Action speaks louder than words” crowd. Again, this belief has also but me at a disadvantage in life occasionally when you have only one chance to impress and the one making the most noises usually win out in this kind of situation. On the other hand, i like to pick my own battle where the gains are worth the effort.
Well, back to the sandwich menu issue, I let my wife know that 2-3 items is making a mockery out of customers and an insult. It would be better not even carry it than to have it just so that we have it. You get my drift? Working with Sysco, I was able to create a 12 items sandwich menu that i drew a line in the sand for. They were not happy about it but relented after i assured them that it will not take away from their wonton sales and once the wonton sales pick up, we will remove the sandwiches menu. They even took issue with the free coffee machine that Sysco provided for ordering the coffee ground. Apparently they were concerned that it will affect their son’s tea sales. Seems to me like they only consider sales from wonton and tea as legit revenue. It surprised me to no end thinking that someone who claimed to do big businesses before would have this kind of thought. Again, I am the one with no business skills or experience, maybe they know something I don’t.
Fast forward to opening weeks. I still remember the very first customer. He was the Verizon field technician working on the hub by the curb and stop by for lunch. He ordered our home made BBQ Pulled Pork sandwiches. Yes yours truly made that and the bbq sauce the goes with it. My wife commented on the first order, in her words ” When he walked in, every one was nervous and did not know what to do, you were the only one who calmly took the order, made the sandwiches, and served it”. Another instance, a couple came in with their little boy and order sandwiches and wanted water, the partners’ son told them we only served iced tea. He was so confident that within 5 minutes they would come back and order the iced tea. Well 5 minutes came and passed and they finished their food and left without saying a word. That’s the last we see of them! Oh the cops from across the street did trickle in, and I welcomed them with the coffee is on the house announcement. Bad move! Each time, my offer were turned down with a cold stare and response of “I don’t drink coffee”. Apparently, the cops across the streets are not like those the hung around donut shops. They don’t drink coffee. Seriously, in the 5 yrs, I don’t recall ever serving coffee to any cops! There goes the myth of cops and donut shops!
Stay tune for more on the Jumping1ton story.
Read about The Jumping1ton Story Part II The Journey and curveballs
